


Hello

by traveling_imagination



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8320840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveling_imagination/pseuds/traveling_imagination
Summary: How many messages had he left during the first month? Hundreds? Thousands? All starting the same. "Hello, just calling to…."





	

It was just a hunk of plastic and wires. Totally inanimate and devoid of action. So why did he feel like it was going to jump up and bite him? Sanji had been staring at his phone for a good hour, debating and arguing and convincing himself why he should and shouldn’t pick it up and dial.

“He would be awake,” the blond mumbled around his cigarette.

_No._ He suddenly stubbed the cancer stick into his overloaded ashtray. _No, I am not going to do this again!_

How many messages had he left during the first month? Hundreds? Thousands? All starting the same.

“Hello, just calling to….”

“Hello, you left your…”

“Hello, you’re a bastard…”

None of his voicemails were ever answered, Sanji didn’t even know if that stupid, annoying, idiotic…. If _he_ had received them.

The blond stood up rather quickly and strode into his kitchen. Cooking would stop him from leaving another pointless message to that ungrateful…

XXXXXXXX

 “What the hell are you doing?” the cook barked, staring aghast at his boyfriend in the kitchen.

“What’s it look like I’m doing, curly?” the green haired lunatic grunted.

“Well, stop!” the cook practically screamed. Swiftly twisting on the ball of his foot, Sanji kicked Zoro right in the hip, catapulting the moss head away from the stove.

“Fuck, shit cook, what the hell!?” the man yelled back, massaging his soar side and glaring bloody murder at the blond.

“Don’t touch my kitchen!” the cook said darkly as he turned to see what damage Zoro had done to his precious territory.

Luckily, there was no smoke or signs of burning. Although the counter was a bit messy with vegetables, and the cutting board hadn’t been wiped off properly. His treasured chef knives had been used, but they didn’t look damaged…

“I was just…” Zoro grumbled from behind him.

“Just what?” he snapped, a bit more venom leaking into his voice than he had meant to.

The tanned swordsman recoiled slightly, a glare falling over his face like a mask. “It wasn’t even that bad,” he huffed eventually, meaning the mess.

“It is still _my_ kitchen, _my_ property, _my_ use!”

“FINE!” Zoro suddenly roared, making Sanji jump. “I don’t even know why I bothered, you fucking romantic sap. At least I was trying!” Not even waiting for a response, he was gone; grabbing his jacket and slamming the door.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, baka marimo?” Sanji yelled after him, knowing he wasn’t listening.

Cussing and grumbling, the cook turned back to the pan on the stove. It was a simple stir fry with grilled meat, water chestnuts and some other choice vegetables. “What the fuck, marimo?” he whispered to himself again.

XXXXXXXXX

Sanji blinked as he cleared his mind of that memory, his blue eyes now staring down at that exact same dish. He hadn’t even meant to make it, his hands had just moved on their own accord. The cook sighed, that argument hadn’t been their first, hell they had fought all the time, but that one yelling match had been the initiating incident to the whole derailment that had followed.

The blond suddenly froze, his hands had been reaching for a second plate to dish up the meal. Fuck, he needed to get over this, to forget the whole thing.

Zoro was gone. He had left. _And good riddance!_ A part of him added. But his chest ached at the thought, he chalked it up to his smoking habit.

Leaning against the counter, Sanji brought a forkful of stir fry to his lips and started eating.

XXXXXXXXX

“Should I even ask?”

Zoro glared up from under his rain soaked hoody, his hands shoved deep into his pockets and mud caking his shoes like a thick icing. A bruise was forming on his jaw, but it didn’t look to serious.

Sanji smirked, stepping aside and letting the bedraggled marimo into his apartment.

After the green haired man had had a shower and was given some dry clothing, the two young men sat quietly on the couch watching some crime show.

“Why did you come here?” Sanji asked after a while. “Why not Luffy’s or Usopp’s?”

“Because I thought I wouldn’t get asked questions here,” the other man huffed in annoyance, giving the cook a pointed glare.

“Alright, alright. I yield,” Sanji said, holding his hands up in surrender. “Forgive me oh mysterious moss ball,” he added sarcastically with a leer.

The green haired man growled menacingly. But the effect was more of less ruined by the fact that the man’s stomach gave its own rumbling growl. The swordsman looked away, in an attempt to hide his embarrassment.

 “Can I ask one question though?” Sanji leaned closer to the other man. He simply got a glare in return. “Are you hungry?”

Zoro actually looked a bit surprised at that, but eventually he nodded.

“Well then, you came to the right place,” the cook grinned as he got up and headed to the kitchen, “anything in particular to please your god forsaken palate?”

“Watch it, curly,” the swordsman growled, but he followed Sanji into the kitchen anyway.

“I’ll make a stir fry,” Sanji said more to himself than his _guest._ “It’s quick and…” The cook continued on talking, throwing around ideas of how to make their meal. He muttered to himself as he waltzed around the kitchen. “Oh good, I still have those peppers… I’d like to make the sauce from scratch, would you mind waiting that long? Shit, I’m out of chicken, would you like beef with it instead?”

“…Fish?”

“Huh?” the blond glanced over his shoulder in confusion. “Watchya say, marimo?”

“Can you make stir fry with fish?”

Sanji hesitated for a moment, was Zoro actually asking for a preference? The green head was always so private and closed.

“If you want,” he said after a pause. “I might not have the type you like though.”

“It’ll be fine,” Zoro’s voice was hardly a murmur. “Your cooking always is.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Shit,” Sanji ground out between his teeth as he put his plate down. “Shit, no… Fucking SHIT!”

The first meal Zoro and he had had alone together. Pretty much the night that had started the shift in their relationship from just friends to… Was that what Zoro had been trying to do the night of their fight?

_Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit_

The night of that big fight… A rainy Friday… Just like that day… Exactly one year ago.

Sanji bolted out of the kitchen and vaulted the couch in order to get to his phone. He didn’t even need to look at his contact list, he simply dialed the number from memory.

His heart was beating painfully in his throat and his one hand kept gripping his blond strands. The ringing of the phone was sharp on his eardrums. Sanji prayed for the first time, that he would pick up; hoped that this one time he wouldn’t be redirected to voicemail.

_“I’m not here, leave a message.”_

The cook felt like screaming as the telltale beep echoed in his head.

“Hello,” he started automatically.

Fuck, what was he going to do now?

“I… um… well you see…” _shit, what the hell am I doing?_

“How are you?” _Ok, cook, that is the lamest of all lame you can get!_ An uncomfortably familiar voice played in the back of his mind.

“Fuck, I mean…” Sanji sighed.

“Zoro,” he began again. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but…” He took a short paused and restarted one more time.

“All that stuff we did, all those fights. I’m sorry that they happened. Well, maybe not some of them. Some were fun and some you totally fucking deserved. I mean… Well…” Sanji’s went quiet for a second, just listening to the soft buzz in his ear.

“I remembered something just now… That fight we had, when I found you in the kitchen and kicked you out, then you left and didn’t come back for two nights.” The blond absently rubbed at his eyes. “I know it’s too late, but I just realised what you were trying to do that night.”

Sanji dropped his head into his free hand in defeat. “And then a couple fights later you were yelling shit about how I never give you the chance to try, or recognize that you were trying… Again you were talking about that night. Fuck, Zoro…” he faltered. “You were trying so hard to tell me, but I was always so pissed that you never understood when I tried to tell you.”

 He rubbed at the corners of his eyes again, the skin itching from fatigue.

“I’ve tried to call you a lot. I’ve probably broken your voice mail with all those messages. You’re also costing me a fortune, shitty swordsman. Do you know how much it is to call Hokkaido?” Sanji hoped his eyes were only stinging from the dry air of the apartment. “But you haven’t even tried to call.” He paused there, his throat was soar.

“Zoro, I don’t care if you always delete my messages, but I really hope you hear this one,” his chest felt tighter than usual, breathing was starting to hurt. “Can you please call? Any of us? I don’t care. Just call Luffy, or Nami, or Usopp. Even Franky and Chopper would love to hear from you. We just need to hear from you again.”

He clutched the front of his shirt, fisting the fine fabric and twisting it in his fingers. “God dammit, Zoro. I want to hear from you again.” He was hurting so much, he doubled over his knees.

“Even if we end up fighting, I’ll still be happy if you called. ‘Cause you love fighting right? I like fighting with you too, it’s fun. You challenge me so fucking much. I love it!”

A tear fell and hit Sanji’s hand, making him jump to wipe it away.

“Shit, marimo. Just…” he fought not to let anymore tears fall.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hundreds of miles away, Roronoa Zoro sat in a tiny ass apartment staring at his phone. A voice was floating out of the speakers, filling the small space. The stupid blond was talking to him, well, not really _to_ him. He had left voice mail.

“Shit marimo. Just…”

There was a moment of silence. As if both men were waiting for each other to speak, even though they knew no one would answer.

“Just, please, say hello. To let me know if you’re still there.”

Zoro heard Sanji inhale quickly, as if collecting himself, then there was a click and the phone was silent. The message blinked on the screen, at the top of the list of hundreds of other voicemails left by the same number. He selected another one at random, and Sanji’s voice filled the room again.

“Hello, you left your favourite shirt here idiot. And there is no way I’m paying the postage to send it to you. I’ll probably throw it out, it’s a piece of garbage anyway. Oh, and Luffy wants to know if you want him to send down your weights from the gym. Why did you leave them there, shitty moss?”

Zoro knew the shirt the cook was talking about. The old white T-shirt he’d had since he was nineteen. He’d mostly used it as a work out shirt. The last couple times he had seen it, Sanji had been wearing it as a pajama shirt. He left his weights in the gym because if he left them in the apartment there was no space in the extra room to spar. Whenever Zoro listened to the blonde’s messages it always sounded like the cook was finding different pieces of the swordsman life that had still been laying about and was trying to find the quickest way to get rid of them.

Going back to the top of the list again, Zoro opened the latest voicemail and listened to it again.

_“Just, please, say hello. To let me know if you’re still there.”_

As it ended for the second time, the green haired man gripped the phone tightly in his hand. The plastic creaking under the strain.

“Shit, cook,” he muttered in a hushed tone to the empty room. He brought the phone to his lips, barely allowing his voice to escape. “Sanji, ‘course I still want to be there.”


End file.
